Heavy

Orientation began yesterday, and I have been a Student Cantor for two days.  The general consensus among the students was that orientation meant we were students.  When's lunch again?

As with any typical orientation, there have been "get-to-know-yous" and icebreakers and the likes.  I was fully prepared for the adjective+name game, "Kaleidoscopic Kenny," or the fruit/vegetable+name "Key Lime Kenny," and so forth, but these icebreakers challenged us.  One focus group was about what moments or stepping stones led us to deciding to attend the HUC.  For the second, we had to name three guests we'd bring to Shabbat dinner, dead or alive (Claudius, Judy Garland, Alan Turtletaub, my great-uncle).  The third was about what we would do with the free time resulting from a teacher's sudden absence.  The fourth was about prayers or Jewish customs that inspire us.  I won't provide answers for all of them now, but you may feel free to message me for more information.

Today we had a series of nice discussions with movers and shakers within the HUC/URJ world.  Brief acronym summary: HUC=Hebrew Union College, my school.  URJ=Union of Reform Judaism, or the umbrella group for the Reform Jews of North America.  Among the speakers today were Rabbi Dr. Richard Marmur, the HUC's Vice President of Academic Affairs, Rabbi Naamah Kelman, the Dean of the HUC Jerusalem Campus, Dr. David Mendelssohn, a scholar and leader of the Israel Studies at HUC in Jerusalem, and the President-Elect of the URJ, Rick Jacobs.  I cannot possibly summarize all their brilliant statements, but I wish to impart some of their words of wisdom:

There are 613 flavors of Judaism here in Jerusalem.  Experience them all!

Hebrew is the link to Jewish culture.  Secular or religious, the concepts of the Jewish culture are imbedded in all Israelis. 

Life is what you make of it.  You will get many opportunities to study people, to learn with a friend, to take a trip somewhere.  If you explore these options, you will get the most out of this year.

We can foster a love even with self-critical analysis.

There always is a feeling of mishpocha (family) among Israelis.

Now I'll share one quick story.  One of the discussions in the groups brought the idea that now, in 2011/5771, we are able to go to Israel to study, to visit family and friends, to tour the entire nation, to eat the foods, and to pray.  These are relatively new phenomena of life in Israel.  I immediately thought of my family, my great-grandparents, my great-great grandparents, and my ancestors who for generations never even left their shtetls in East Europe.  Those who did went to America because they could not go to Palestine.  To my knowledge, I am the first person in my family who has visited Israel more than once.  More uplifting, by being here a year, I will have the longest span of time in the Promised Land out of my family for probably scores of generations.  I haven't fully wrapped my head around this concept.

Rabbi Zwieback, the head of the Year-In-Israel, brought up the concept of digging through grandfather's basement and finding treasures, thereby building connections with a family's past.  Almost ten years ago, we went through my great-uncle's, Alan Turtletaub, house to find various things that belonged to my father or that which other relatives wanted.  Among the things were found was a box of letters and information about my grandmother, Alan's sister, who I never met since she died when my father was young.  We also found post cards and love letters of Alan and his future wife, Beatrice.  The last thing is something that was bestowed upon me by Alan's son--his tallit.  I'm not sure how many years it sat in that closet on the second floor, but it now gets frequent use.  It was presented to me on the honor of my Bar Mitzvah and joined me in my journey to Israel. 

Sorry for the sob story moments.  It's been a heavy day. 

Sidebar: I'm keeping an album of the Cats of Israel "Chatuley Yisrael."  It will absolutely be on Facebook, but I might also post it on Flickr or whatever online photo album sites are good these days.  Watch out for a link.

"Heavy" comes from Dreamgirls.